Fighting for the Soul of Germany: The Catholic Struggle for Inclusion after Unification, by Rebecca Ayako Bennette

Abstract

Fighting for the Soul of The Catholic Struggle for Inclusion after Unification, by Rebecca Ayako Bennette. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2012. xii, 368 pp. $ 49.95 US (cloth). Many German Catholics found it difficult to wholeheartedly embrace the incarnation of the German nation created by Otto von Bismarck. They had dreamed of a Germany that included largely Catholic Austria. Instead Bismarck's small German solution was overwhelmingly Protestant. The new emperor was the formal head of the Evangelical Church of Prussia, and Protestants dominated the army, the civil service and universities. Identification with the new Germany became even more challenging for Catholics when Bismarck and his political allies unleashed the Kulturkampf. It would have been understandable if German Catholics had turned en masse against the Protestant-dominated German state. Equally understandable is that historians have paid much more attention to the Catholic subculture and its struggle against Kulturkampf legislation than to their efforts to become part of the new nation. Rebecca A. Bennette convincingly argues that Catholics actually went to great lengths to embrace and define Germany. Bennette's monograph comprises two distinct parts. The first begins with a discussion of the German question and its religious aspects before unification. Events such as the Cologne Troubles, a dispute over the confessional upbringing of children, the Wartburg national festival (1817) celebrating Luther's break with the papacy, the romantic nationalism with its evocation of medieval splendor and Bavaria's King Ludwig's Vallhalla project as well as the 1848 revolution showed the possibilities and limits of cross-confessional (p. 19) in nation building. The more important chapters of part one, deal with Catholic attitudes during the beginning of the German epoch, between the Prussian defeat of Austria and the end of the Kulturkampf. By closely reading the diverse Catholic press and analysing the annual Katholikentage, Bennette identifies four distinct phases during which Catholic identification with Germany moved from initial cautious optimista and a willingness to become part of the new Germany to uncertainty about having a real future in the Reich (p. 42). During the most intense phase of the Kulturkampf (1875-77), some Catholics saw an opportunity for cooperation with conservative Protestants. As proof of their Germanness they joined the vociferous chorus of anti-Semitic rhetoric. While anti-Semitic rabble-rousing was opposed by prominent Center politicians such as Ludwig Windthorst and the Kolnische Volkszeitung, Germany's second most important Catholic daily, virtually all Catholic newspapers and the various factions of the Center Party, agreed on the dangers of Socialism. Bennette interprets Catholics' anti-Semitic and anti-socialist rhetoric as demonstrations that they were true Germans and that an increasing closeness between Catholics and the Kaiser existed (p. 64). The end of the conflict posed a new dilemma. Catholic solidarity forged during Kulturkampf was threatened once its vigour waned. As a consequence, Bennette argues, the Center broadened its political focus beyond religious questions, moving closer to other political parties and embracing the Kaiserreich rather than Catholic politics. In the second more original part of the book Bennette takes a topical approach. In turn, she investigates Catholics' conceptualization of their place in Germany's regions and her capital, the use of feminine imagery in their construction of the German nation, Catholic contributions to German education and science, and finally, Catholic ideas of the Kaiserreich's place on the world stage. …